So, I’ve gotten tired of writing multiple times on the same subject, when I forget and accidentally delete it or when I just never save it, so in hopes of keeping a better track on what I on specific topic, I’ll try to post them here too.
Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:13 pm
Geology
(Reddit, asking what pangea would have been like) So Pangea wouldn’t have had a desert right next to a rainforest. Basically what happens is differential heating of the earth causes cycles in the atmosphere(I can’t remember their names off the top of my head) moisture is picked up in areas and dropped in others starting at the equator where it rains a lot, I think the sahara and the middle eastern area would be where the air pick up a lot of the moisture, this continues through the latitudes like three times giving our current desert areas(Just look for deserts and their latitudes, air goes up and away from there) This would stay roughly constant unless the Earth suddenly flips. There is evidence of swamps where there is now a desert and other changes.
At the mid oceanic ridges(there are multiples) new crust is being made, while at the edges of the continental plates the oceanic plates are being pushed down(they are more dense) but it isn’t constant and the plates are tending to grow more. Also, the Earth has had it’s magnetic field change through it’s history, a magnetic field kept when the rock is formed and is erased as the rock is destroyed, Scientists have dragged a magnetometer across the ocean floor and have seen the field reverse around the mid oceanic ridge.
If you want to go see where new oceanic plates are being created, go to Iceland(I don’t know of the name of the place) ridge actually comes up to the surface and you can see it. Continental drift is still happening, just it is still as slow as it ever was. Also you can see Hawaii, the eastern most island is the oldest, and the big island is the one that is currently over the hotspot.
For clarification the continental plates are less dense, older and tend to float more, the oceanic plates are thinner, denser, younger, and will go down more readily. The different kinds of volcanoes are also due to this, shield volcanoes have basaltic magma, to cinder cone volcanoes, like washington state, have andestic magma, and yellowstone has rhyolitic magma. Increasing silica content from different melting times and higher viscosity can give you BIGGER eruptions. The magma that Yellowstone has, has to take such a long distance that it builds up a lot of silica.
I went a bit off the rails there, but I hope I at least kinda helped.
(Reddit, asking about issues with GMO plants) There’s a few issues, but there are also bonuses. Likely there aren’t any inherent issues from eating the plants, they can be engineered to produce a certain vitamin that a region might be lacking which can be a huge benefit to health. They can also be engineered to produce more food per plant. However there might be issues with weeds while at it, if the pesticide you use can also affect your crop. You could choose to also look into a pesticide resistant plant, this would let you spray your pesticide while keeping your crop, some farms might then overspray wanting to kill weeds while the crops are getting a massive dose of harmful chemicals sprayed on them, which may or may not be absorbed into the plant. Farmers that have organic farms next to a farm that has the pesticide resistant plants may have contamination from the spray. There have also been cases where seeds from the GMO have gone to a nonGMO farm and people have been sued because of theft or something because the GMO companies don’t want seeds of their plant that likely has it’s price hiked to be free. A very basic example of genetically modifying an organism, is with pGLO, you use bacteria and a gene segment, with a bit of shock, to create glowing bacteria. Biology uses similar methods to test specific aspects of drugs, they can special order clones of mice, and gene knockouts(look up leptin knockout mice) Forestry does a similar thing, foresters can order trees from nurseries specific to regions(some trees can only go so far from a region and do well), or the trees can be bred to grow faster or to be unpalatable to deer, common issue with western redcedar which is really tasty to deer.
I’m not an expert, but that’s about what I know and if you know how to manage it, I believe GMOs can be helpful.
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